The Pitfalls of Emo-Math
What we think is going on is never what's really going on.
The Inciting Incident:
Recently, a highly anticipated movie came to our town. I’d been barely able to contain myself, waiting for it. On the day we were going to see it, she got sick, so I went by myself and came home all googly-eyed. I was so happy, because when she felt better, I’d get to see it again!
We went the following week, and about a half hour in, she was already quiet-sighing, sometimes leaning forward with her head in her hands. Her knee going up and down, shifting in her seat.
HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?!
What I did with it:
My disappointment was understandable, but not useful. Paying attention to what I did with that disappointment, however, was incredibly useful.
Here is the crazy emo-math that commandeered my mind once I learned that she didn’t like my favorite movie:
If she doesn’t like what I like, then she’s not My People.
If she’s not My People, then what have we been doing for twenty-four years?
I must have been unhappy all these years without even knowing it!
(Insert list of all the times we’ve disagreed about anything, ignoring the decades when we were on the same page—which leads me to:)
She doesn’t understand me.
She has no imagination.
She’s too locked up in her tiny little worldview.
Conclusion: OMG. I’M UNHAPPY!
Do you get how ridiculous this is?
The thinking completely skipped over years of unflagging support, times when she was the only one who did understand me, when her imagination solved problems, decades of laughter, genuine acts of love, deep agreement, and moments (thousands, millions) where she and I were absolutely in sync.
But she didn’t like this movie.
So I’m not letting go of my precious emo-math.
Unchecked, unobserved, this attachment leaves me calcified into a place where a simple disagreement morphs into an ominous kind of loneliness.
A different way to approach the situation.
I heard somewhere (I think from poet Pádraig Ó Tuama?) that in Irish culture, there is a way of expressing emotion that goes like this: You don’t say, “I’m angry,” but “Anger is in the house.” In other words, I’m being visited by this feeling, but it’s not who I am.
So when I feel lonely or misunderstood, I can say, “Momentary disconnect is in the house. There’s just a storm blowing through my heart right now.”
This feels so much better than You don’t get me.
All through TheMovieThatILoved, I worked hard to keep from making her wrong for feeling as she did. To remember that she had a house, too. And feelings blew through hers just like they did mine.
I remembered everything I love about her, her brilliance, her rock solid authenticity, her good heart, etc. And I reminded myself it’s okay to be different. It’s healthy to respond differently to things. That’s what makes the world interesting.
When we got out of the movie, I talked about the weather, a phone call I’d had with my daughter, something we needed to pick up at the grocery store. We went everywhere except the movie. And I forgot all about being upset that she didn’t like the movie.
The next day, she did this incredibly generous thing. It came out of nowhere.
She said to me, “I promise I will keep an open mind, and I won’t say a negative word: Tell me what you loved about the movie.”
Being asked in this open way had such a curious effect on me. It helped me see how I really felt, which was surprising.
I realized that I had a much more nuanced, textured take on the movie. I wasn’t the mindless fangirl I’d first embodied. And I didn’t actually love the movie as much as I wanted to, as much as I thought I did. But I admired it.
Her question made space for me to feel all my feels about it…to love it for its intent, its message. And to feel where it had failed, and still love it. A great conversation followed between us.
It was a marital miracle, created by both of us—me, for noticing my emo-math and not letting it run the show, and her for, well, being her. Showing up with that magnanimous heart and good mind, the way she always does.
Today, I bow my head with gratitude for the healing power of self-awareness, and the way life keeps showing us new things, no matter how long we’ve been kickin’ around.
Wisdom from Anam Thubten
”Maybe the true doorway to enlightenment is not escaping into a meditation cave but is raising a family.” from Into the Haunted Ground: a Guide to Cutting the Root of Suffering
Comedy from Bryan Callen
Oh honey. This take on how giraffes came into being is the best.
I think we all want to feel seen. Sharing something that touches me with someone else I love only seems to result in joy if it happens at the same time for both of us. Once the event is over, it can’t be recreated. Time is time. The vibration that dissolves and creates the universe, called Spanda in Sanskrit, and the “vibrations, waves and frequencies” in Quantum Physics, has us constantly changing.
Being present at the same time in awe with someone else is all that really touches me. It acknowledges each other’s awareness/consciousness for just a moment. That is what is so amazing. Not that we agree on the content of the moment, but that we each meet one another in awe. It can happen with a deer, my best friend, a bird, my lover. It feels like love, and that “I” have crossed over into being fully alive without my “ego” weighing me down, making me weirdly unable to fly.
Wanting to share in that "see what I see" way after the event only disappoints me because it is more of a need to be mirrored than to share awe, or at least it seems that way. On the other hand, it's also a good "aha" moment and reminds me that I can strengthen my “I” , my Self/awareness/consciousness identity in meditation. The more I meditate, the more I become identified in my Self, the more room I have for vulnerability and awe in the next moment.
Note: Thanks for this post... I'll probably upgrade to Paid after the election, assuming we have one.